On hand for the two-hour event will be Satya Nadella, President of Microsoft's Server and Tools Division, as well as Brad Anderson, Corporate Vice President of Management and Security. It starts at 8:30 a.m. PT/11:30 a.m. ET and will be broadcast here.

To date, Microsoft has sold the System Center point products independently. I've been hearing rumblings that the company may be about to change this strategy and sell one offering called System Center 2012 that includes all 10 or so individual pieces in a single bundle.

Microsoft officials are positioning System Center as a key component of its private cloud strategy. (System Center's public-cloud counterpart is Windows Intune.)